Last weekend we thinned out the library and really cleaned it.  I also moved some books to make room for our musical instruments.  Books can get incredibly dusty, so we had to move each book and dust it.

I know these shelves look full, but we took out bags and bags of books!

The bottom shelf used to hold books, but I wanted to get our instruments off the floor.  Organizer extraordinaire Peter Walsh always says that if you have something in your house then it should be honored.  I try to remember this when I place items in our house and I feel less guilty about moving out items we aren’t honoring.

More organzing pictures to come!

One of my BIG Getting Ready for Baby projects was to organize the changing station and baby clothing, diapers/wipes, and burp cloths/blankets.  I plan on using cloth diapers when the baby grows into them, but we will have to use disposables until then.  My friend Christine gave us tons of cloth diapers and covers and I am so excited to try them.  I hope I am able to keep up with the extra laundry.

My friend Amy gave us this lovely changing table. I used the fabric boxes to give the space a more organized look.

The changing area is in our bedroom (in the library area), so I tried to keep it as neutral as possible.

I LOVE the label maker.

My m-i-l made us this very useful diaper caddy before Miss Petrie was born.

More pictures to come from the BIG Getting Ready for Baby projects list.  Have a great day.

I’ve organized my stamps into plastic bins, but I wanted a visual record of my stamps, roughly organized by theme.  And I know you want to see my stamps, too.  Right?  Of course you do!

Stampin' Up frame stamps and dot stamps

My mom recently gave me these teacher stamps.

I made a really cute card with the dino coming out of the egg, but I didn't take a picture of it. Grrr!

Ticket stamps and meaningful words

Christmas stamps

Letter stamps and a monkey stamp

Love stamps

Curious George and Dollar Tree stamps

Message stamps

Wedding stamps

Nature stamps

I try to use the stamps I have before I buy new stamps.  I feel guilty when I have stamps I have yet to use.  I guess I really need to prioritize and get crafting!

Have a wonderful day!

I have two ways of getting rid of my stuff.  When my house is messy and I feel frustrated that I cannot keep it organized, I mercilessly get rid of bags of things in each room.  Sometimes I get over-zealous and get rid of stuff we might still be using.  Not good.  The better way for me to get rid of things is to put a box in my garage and put things in it that would be more useful in someone else’s home.  

I put the charity’s name or in this case pick-up card on the box.  I let it fill over the course of a couple of weeks.  I give it away and get a tax deduction.  And I’m happy because I have less stuff cluttering up my house!

In the past couple of years I’ve accumulated a lot of crafting supplies.  They were housed in our library and in our office, but unfortunately I wasn’t seeing the great supplies I have.  

I started off with this:

and this

Using large baskets to organize small things is inefficient because you spend so much time looking for stuff.  I purchased clear shoe boxes at Dollar Tree to hold stamps, paper accessories, and ink.

I use my label maker all the time.  It’s really useful when everything looks the same (like six matching shoe boxes) to know exactly where specific items are.  

In the three tier organizer, I placed crafting paper, tools (such as my glue gun), and crafts (such as cards).  All of the crafting supplies will now go into our office.  I’m working on the office and I hope to post the finished product on Friday.  

Ahh…I literally feel like I can breathe better when my home is organized. Enjoy your day!

Thanks to How Sweet the Sound for hosting Pink Saturday.

We have made an effort here at Casa Petrie to use our closet space well.  I read lots of small home (usually small is considered under 2,000 square feet) books to get storage and organization ideas.  These books point out two important points about closets: 1) if you add a second bar to your closet, you double your closet real estate, and 2) use that darn vertical space!!  Well, we could do that without going into debt for California Closets.

This is our coat closet.  We added wire organizers to increase our kitchen storage.

One night a crash woke us.  Our master bedroom closet had one very long and much-abused bar holding up all of our clothes.  The bar cracked in half and we decided to re-do the closet.

We added a second bar and the top of the closet is used for out-of-season shoes and hats.

In Miss Petrie’s room, we decided to forego a dresser and store her folded clothes in pink wire cubbies from Target.  I also use a combination of clear boxes and baskets to help organize her toys and accesories.  

Right side:

Left side (this is how a closet looks when a 3 year old gets to pick her own clothes):

At the top of her closet, I’ve used containers to corral an assortment of stuff we need for specific occasions, but not daily.  The very top of the closet has blankets.  They go right up to the ceiling.

On the back of Miss Petrie’s door, I use a shoe organizer for her shoes.  I don’t think shoe organizers are so great for most adults because they don’t store many pairs of shoes, but for a child, it’s the perfect size since you can usually store one pair in one pocket.

I feel much happier knowing we use the space available to us as effectively as we can.  Have a great weekend and enjoy all the other Pink Saturday posts!

In my effort to shop only when I am looking for something specific, I went to Goodwill looking for a basket.  Thrift stores have the best deals on baskets.  I have never seen one for more than about $7 and that was for a big, intricate basket.  Of course, then I saw a few other cute things I couldn’t pass up…

This brand new toddler dress with tags was marked $14.97. I paid $2.50.

Target overstock merchandise- this sleeper was $1.

A big, tray-like basket for $2.99.

Miss Petrie found this painted tile and easel with Portugal written on the bottom. It was $.59.

I reorganized Mr. Petrie's yarn using my new basket. Much better than Albertson's bags "organizing" his yarn.

Check out all the other great deals at Bloggeritaville’s Thrifty Thursday.  Happy thrifting!

Thanks to The Stories of A to Z for hosting the Mantel Party.

After the Christmas avalanche of presents for little Miss Petrie, I realized I needed to go through my daughter’s books and move out some of the “baby” books (because she is a whopping 4 years old!) to make room for more age-appropriate books.

I truly believe that if you don’t know what you have, it’s easy to forget your options.  This is especially true for children.  If I don’t rotate Miss Petrie’s toys and books, she tends to play with a few toys and ignore the others.  And some of the toys and books she ignores are so awesome, I believe it is my motherly duty to point her in the right direction.

Here are the living room bookshelves.  Some of Miss Petrie’s books and toys live in this space.  I had already pulled out a ton of books when I took this picture.

Before

I like my living room to look pretty and neat and not like a toy bomb exploded.  Luckily, Miss Petrie and Mr. Petrie  agreed that we needed to work as a team to decide what stuff should stay and what should go and we accomplished organizing four bookshelves in a couple of hours.  The fourth shelf was in Miss Petrie’s room and I did not have time to beautify the area for photos.

After

What was bothering me the most about this space was that everything looked shoved in.  I didn’t have objects grouped by size.  I also had about 50 magazines in one of those baskets and they needed to be recycled.  The shelves also needed a good dusting and there is no better time for that then when you are reorganizing.

I put all the photo boxes together.  They hold videos and dvds.  I placed the magazines next to the boxes where they are easy to see and read.  On the bottom shelf I put all of Miss Petrie’s games and puzzles together.  The basket holds smaller games and puzzles that quickly can look like clutter.

After-right shelf

The middle, and most visible shelf, needed some symmetry to balance out all the stuff.  I placed the books in a pyramid shape, which I think looks sculptural.  My mom sent me the ceramic bird balls and I think they help the balanced look I am going for.

After-middle shelf

I didn’t do very much to the last shelf.  The top houses some favorite books.  The bottom contains our music organized in three cd books (to save space, of course) and Mr. Petrie’s video games in the basket.  I’ll be going through his video games soon, but don’t tell him.

After- left shelf

Check out some of my other organizing endeavors:

Organizing the Kitchen So It Works for Me

Spring Organizing: Drawer Makeover

Spring Organizing: Gift Cabinet

Spring Organizing: Home Library

Have a wonderful Friday!

Thanks to We ARE THAT Family for hosting Works for Me Wednesday!

When we moved into our house, our kitchen looked like this:

The kitchen is small, but the main problem was that I needed to prioritize what we use every day.  We’ve lived in this house for three years, so I’ve been able to fine-tune our organization and storage within this limited space.

A view of the kitchen today:

We’ve done a lot of cosmetic work, but organizing the space really makes it work for our family.

The previous fixture was a bare bulb.  Now we are able to light all the important spaces.  And let’s face it, this fixture is awesome.

I use the space above the fridge to hold the cookbooks I use most often.  The leather box holds our chips.

The coffee station keeps all our supplies together and off of valuable counter space.

Over time, I have weeded out kitchen gadgets that we don’t use or that we had several copies of.  Our cabinets are neatly organized so it’s easy for me to get to what I use most often.

I keep all the spices in these funky wall-mount containers.  I also keep cloth napkins in this area.  And, just to be super obvious, I label the spices.

Magnetic strips keep the most important instruments at hand.

I use containers for easy access.

Eventually, I want to have herbs where we have these plants.

I put meaningful objects throughout Casa Petrie.  My mom collects antique irons.  She let me choose an iron for my kitchen when we bought our first home.

We love to eat at home.  This basket of oil keeps our options close to the stove when we are cooking.

What storage solutions work well in your kitchen?  Thanks for stopping by Casa Petrie.

Welcome to Casa Petrie.  Perhaps you are visiting from here:

But, if you haven’t stopped by Sanctuary Arts at Home, go check out all the fabulous make-overs (after you read my post, of course)!

We’ve lived at Casa Petrie for over three years.  We moved into our home three days before Miss Petrie was born.  After we returned from the hospital with our little bundle, I was generally pretty happy to move stuff out of boxes and into the kitchen cabinets.  I didn’t replace the contact paper in the cabinets.  Yes, I am ashamed.

The act of changing out the paper lining your cabinets is a way to claim your new space as your own.  I know this.  I have done it at other houses.  But, I hadn’t done it at Casa Petrie.  Well, I finally got some lovely shelf liner at the Dollar Tree when I went back to get more Ikea dishes.

I think this shelf liner looks fairly Scandinavian. Mr. Petrie thinks it looks kind of Christmas-y.

The kitchen cabinets had an 1980s pastel contact paper.  It looked dingy and I’m sure the frat boys that lived in our house before we bought it didn’t clean the cabinets that often!

Before

Now I smile when I look in these drawers.

After

The table utensil drawer:

I found a tiny plastic skeleton in the back of this drawer.

Our kitchen is done in shades of blue, dark brown, silver, and sand.  This red really gives the cabinet interior a splash of color.  It also spiffies up an area that is generally utilitarian and drab.  I have more ideas for the kitchen cabinets and will post pictures in the coming weeks.  Thanks for stopping by Casa Petrie.